Chapter 12 #3
“She won’t!” Emma’s practically shouting now. “My mother barely speaks to my father! They sleep in separate bedrooms and communicate through intermediaries! She wouldn’t tell him anything!”
“I said no,” I repeat, crossing my arms.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Emma snaps, slamming her hands on the desk. “This is about control. You don’t want me to call my mother because then you’d have to acknowledge that I’m a real person with a real life and people who love me, not just some pawn in your revenge fantasy.”
I roll my eyes at her. Fucking Emma and her dramatics.
“It is,” Emma snaps, eyes narrowing on me. “This whole thing is about control. You control when I eat, where I go, who I talk to. You control every aspect of my life because it makes you feel powerful. Because your brother’s death made you feel powerless and this is how you cope.”
I laugh in disbelief. “Seriously, Emma? Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Why not?” she challenges, getting up and stepping even closer until we’re toe to toe. “Someone needs to tell you the truth, Leo. This isn’t about Gabriel anymore. This isn’t about my father. This is about you being too stubborn and too broken to admit you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I bite out.
“Do you?” Emma’s voice drips with sarcasm. “Then enlighten me. What’s your endgame here? What happens next? Do you keep me forever? Do you eventually let me go and hope my father doesn’t start a war? Do you—”
“I don’t know!” I shout, and the admission echoes in the small office. “I don’t fucking know, Emma. Is that what you want to hear? I have no plan. No exit strategy. I took you for revenge and I keep you because I don’t know how to let you go.”
Emma stares at me, breathing hard, her eyes bright with anger and something else. “Why?”
“Why what?” I ask, feeling suddenly drained.
She swallows. “Why don’t you know how to let me go?” Her voice has gone quieter but no less intense. “What’s stopping you, Leo?”
“I don’t—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Tell me,” Emma demands, and she’s so close I can smell vanilla and flowers and can see the gold flecks in her green eyes. “Tell me what you want from me. Because I don’t understand what this is anymore. I don’t understand why I’m still here or what you’re waiting for or what you want.”
“I want—” The words stick in my throat, unable to come out.
“What?” Emma presses, her voice almost desperate now. “Tell me what you want.”
All my carefully constructed walls and excuses crumble under the weight of her question and the intensity in her eyes.
“You,” I say honestly. “I want you, Emma. Not revenge. Not leverage. Not Connor’s daughter. You. I want you.”
Emma’s breath catches, her lips parting in surprise. For a long moment she just stares at me, and I’m sure I’ve misread everything and I’ve made a complete goddamn fool of myself.
But then she says, her voice low and certain, “Then take me.”
I still, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” Her green eyes lock on mine. “If you want me, then take me. Stop torturing both of us and just do it.”
Something in me snaps and I close the distance between us and kiss her again.
Emma moans against my mouth and it goes straight through me. Her hands immediately come up to grip my shirt, pulling me closer, and I press her back against the desk because I need everything.
She kisses me back with the same desperate intensity, her mouth opening under mine, and when her tongue slides against mine I have to grip the edge of the desk to keep from losing it right there.
She tastes like mint and coffee and something sweeter that’s just Emma, and I’ve been imagining this for weeks but the reality is so much better than any fantasy.
I kiss along the column of her throat, finding a spot just below her ear that makes her cry out and arch into me. Her hands are in my hair now, gripping tight, and the slight sting of it just makes me want her more.
“Three weeks,” I mutter against her skin between kisses. “Three weeks of watching you. Wanting you. Trying not to want you.”
“I know,” Emma breathes, her hands moving to my shirt buttons and fumbling with them. “God, Leo, I know. I’ve been—”
I capture her mouth again, swallowing whatever she was about to say, and her fingers finally get my shirt unbuttoned. She pushes it off my shoulders and her palms immediately run over my chest, my shoulders, my arms, and everywhere she touches feels like it’s on fire.
I break the kiss long enough to pull her shirt over her head, and the sight of her in just a bra—dark blue lace that does absolutely nothing to hide her curves—makes my mouth go dry.
“You’re staring,” Emma says, but there’s no self-consciousness in her voice, just want.
“Can’t help it,” I reply honestly, my hands going to her waist, feeling the softness of her skin. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Her face flushes pink and she pulls me back in for another kiss, deeper this time, more demanding. Her hands go to my belt and I reach behind her to unhook her bra, both of us desperate to eliminate every barrier between us.
When her bra falls away I have to stop again and just look at her. Fuck me, she has perfect breasts, her nipples already hard. I lean down to take one in my mouth. Emma arches off the desk with a moan that makes me impossibly harder.
“Leo,” she gasps, her hands in my hair again. “Please—”
I give her other breast the same attention, my tongue circling her nipple before sucking it into my mouth, and Emma’s moans are the best sound I’ve ever heard. My hands slide down to the button of her jeans and I look up at her, asking permission even though we’re way past that point.
“Yes. Fuck yes, yes, get them off.”
I pop the button and pull her jeans and underwear down in one motion, and when Emma is completely naked on my desk I have to take a moment to just appreciate her. Soft curves, flushed skin, her hair falling in waves over her shoulders, and her green eyes dark with want.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Emma complains, her hands going to my belt again.
This time I let her. She gets my pants unbuttoned and shoves them down along with my boxers, and when her hand wraps around my cock I actually groan out loud.